“Oh, yes.”
“Wouldn’t you like to take a long sea trip, to Europe, for instance?”
“I would like it very much.”
“I’ll speak to your husband about it.”
“No, no, I don’t want him.”
“You want to go without him?”
“Yes.” He leaned forward to catch her words which came in low gasps. “I want to—to slip away without anybody knowing. If you can persuade Floyd to let me go alone!—you’ll find him at his club.”
The doctor dropped off at the club that day and spoke to Floyd. He was sitting in the window gazing idly at the green square opposite; what Floyd saw there were flames mounting higher and higher; wherever he went they followed him, scorching him; the world was one great funeral pyre; the flames were drawing him in.
“Your wife is slipping back into the old condition of melancholia; we must prevent that.”
“Doctor, I do all I can.”